


Your Life is a Crime Scene

by Ponderosa



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:31:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5466770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ponderosa/pseuds/Ponderosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It never ceases to amaze him that despite his partner’s penchant for the shittiest street food imaginable, Harvey is pretty damn fit. Just his type, Barbara would've teased once upon a time: big, bearded, and cotton candy at the core.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Life is a Crime Scene

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reeby10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/gifts).



> reeby10: When I read your letter, I felt like we both loved this pairing for the same reasons, so I hope you like this!

At eight in the morning on a Tuesday, the world falls out from under Jim Gordon.

His vision wavers as the air around him shudders and pops like a vacuum, and his stomach clenches with the giddy sensation that comes from a rollercoaster’s big drop. In a blink the shaking is over, and Jim’s left stumbling and disoriented. His ankle protests as his heel comes into contact with something soft and wet, skidding until the whole of his foot twists under his weight. He secures his balance, while around him, the room’s gone from dim to dark. Something’s very, very wrong. Not only have the lights cut out, but from the rancid ammonia stink of it, he's landed knee-deep in pigeon shit. Gagging, Jim buries his face in his sleeve.

Navigating by memory, Jim wades through years of accumulated filth towards where the stairwell had been. Tears blur his eyes, and it's only years of patrolling and policing that keeps his breakfast down. Each sinking step makes an awful squelching sound as the air fills with dust and feathers. Trudging through the sewers had been less disgusting. He peers behind him into the hazy mix of shadows. One minute he’d been aiming his pen light behind a bit of equipment--

Jim pats his jacket. His flashlight is gone, lost and not worth finding if it’d fallen with him. He glances up. There’s no sign of collapse. In fact, it’s the same 20ft ceiling lined with small, mostly-covered windows. Hints of morning eke past the newspapers plastered to the glass. The lights high overhead aren’t simply off--they’re missing entirely. Busted bulbs and the twisted ends of exposed wiring offer nothing but the hum of electricity buzzing fitfully in the air like dying bees.

The stairwell is better lit, with daylight and rainwater pouring in through a hole in the roof. The place is in worse condition than he’d thought, and Jim frowns as a he comes face-first with a spray of colorful graffiti. Nothing seems quite right. He wouldn’t have missed that on the way up. As he descends, Jim catches sight of a few tags in the mix from waterfront gangs, most of them long-since stamped out or absorbed by Maroni’s crew. Glass crunches under his steps, but Jim purposefully avoids looking down at his legs where the slime of birdshit has soaked through his pants.

Limping as he makes it outside, Jim looks for the crime scene tape. It’s gone, all of it, not even a scrap left to flutter on the ground. That’s a first. Jim frowns. In fact there’s no sign of the perimeter, and the patrol cars have left the vicinity. He spins around, favoring his ankle, and with the ache in his skull he can’t help but second guess everything. The whole situation doesn’t make a lick of sense. Had he really come here on a call? Everything’s fuzzy, but he remembers the uniforms acting shifty. No big surprise; he isn’t precisely the most-loved detective in the GCPD. Had there been another, more urgent call? Or had the officers just up and abandoned him in there in some sort of practical joke.

That still doesn’t explain the stairwell, or the light fixtures, though his certainty that the steps and walls had been clean going in--clean as you get in Gotham anyway--starts to elude him. When he’d taken those steps, he’d been distracted wondering where Harvey was, so maybe he can’t trust his memory. His head’s getting worse, the dull pounding making it difficult to think properly. A giddy almost-laugh swells up into his throat. Maybe he’s finally gone off the deep end, cracked and turned full loony like Barbara. As quick as he thinks it, a wrenching ache seizes his chest. He’s never quite sure if he’s angry or what when he pictures the vacant look in her eyes after what that monster made her do.

Jim makes it to the sidewalk before he smells the filth on his legs again. A street lamp supports him through a fresh wave of nausea. The rain has eased into a heavy drizzle that clings to his face. His stomach burbles ominously as he breathes carefully through his mouth. If only it would go back to pouring; he’d trade the discomfort for the free shower.

Once he’s steady and fairly certain he’s not going to ruin his shoes twice over, he turns a critical eye to his surroundings. It isn’t easy. The haze slowing him down worsens along with his balance. The ad on the bus stop bench across the street gives him the most pause. He’d taken notice of it on the way here, and he’d parked two spots down in a space that’s now empty.

His heart starts to race, a finger of raw fear creeping in to shorten his breath and crank up the ache behind his eyes. He's never been one for vivid dreams, so what else is left: Hypnotism? Drugs? A fucking hypno-narcotic? Stranger things have happened in Gotham.

Harvey might know, Jim thinks, his partner’s name coming to him like a lifeline through the building fog. He fumbles in the leaf of his jacket for his phone, but it’s abandoned him along with the flashlight. Jim swears a blue streak. Even with most of the force turning their backs on him the moment he wouldn’t play by Gotham’s rules, he hasn’t felt this abandoned and alone since he was five years old and had lost sight of his mother in the department store.

But a deep breath and grit teeth have always done him right, and it works well enough even with his short-term memory gone topsy-turvy. Jim spots a phone booth down the block and focuses all his energy on making it there without collapsing.

The door rattles as he forces it open and stumbles inside. Jim’s breathing like he’s just run a five-minute mile carrying a fifty-pound pack as he digs through his pockets for a quarter. The pocket is tight around his fingers, the fabric going inside out and scattering change onto the ground. Forced to crouch down to where the concrete smells overwhelmingly of spilled booze and stale urine, he gags again. Jim rescues his fifty cents and stares at the point-tip of his shoes. They’re a mess all right, and the silver-trimmed snakeskin is definitely not his.

Neither are the pants. The few pairs of jeans he owns are all worn soft and need to be replaced; none of them are as slim-fitting or dark as these. Paranoia strikes, and Jim turns his attention to his hands. They don’t seem wrong, not at first glance, but they’re also grime-covered and trembling.

Terrified of what he might find, no matter how insane it sounds, Jim braces his hands on the pay phone and looks for an angle where the metal reflects more than a blur. In the one unmarred bit of stainless steel, his own familiar eyes stare back at him, and Jim lets out a shaky, nervous laugh. It begins raining again as he carefully drops in the coins and dials Harvey’s number.

Jim tucks his hand under his arm. The phone presses cold against his ear. The wait for Harvey to pick up is excruciating. All around Jim, the air feels dense, thick as soup and going from hot to cold and back again. When the other end of the line finally picks up, Harvey’s rough, “What is it?” is almost as jarring as the creaking scrape of the metal cord that Jim grabs tight in his hand.

“Harvey, I think I’ve been dosed with something. I need your help.”

“Dosed, right. Your old man is getting real sick of pulling strings,” Harvey says. His voice is tinny over the line, faraway. “What did you score?”

“What are you talking about?”

Harvey's sigh is overtaken by a rustling as he switches the receiver to his other ear. Jim can picture it clearly: the way he's fishing a scrap of paper out of his pocket as he holds the phone with his shoulder. “Nevermind. Just tell me where you're at. I'll come fetch you.”

Gasping as a stomach cramp pitches him forward, Jim recovers and squints at the street name stamped into the curb right outside the booth. Things are definitely weird but at least he’s where he expects to be. He relays the address and looks down at the mess he’s covered in below the knee. “Can you bring me a change of clothes while you're at it?”

“Please tell me there isn't a body involved.”

“Jesus, Harvey. Just grab the kit from my locker will you?”

“I'm not stopping by the club at this hour. Your place is closer.”

Jim’s about to ask what the hell Harvey is going on about when Harvey snaps a terse, “I'll get you sorted out, junior. Just-- Stay put,” and hangs up. The click before the line goes dead cracks like gunfire, and Jim exhales shakily as he hangs the receiver back on the cradle. The change clunks down into the machine and it’s like the last of his energy goes with it. The hot-to-cold hasn’t stopped, so he yanks the door shut and shivers against the wall of the booth where every inch of the plexiglass is gouged with initials and tags and so scratched it’s more cloudy than clear. 

The blur of traffic passing outside is dreamlike, shapes and colors, and Jim shakes his head more than once to clear it. With the amount of effort that takes, moving to wait anywhere else seems impossible; his aching limbs turn to noodles just considering it.

If he's been dosed it’s potent, and not like anything he's experienced before.

He tries to recall all the new custom drugs that narcotics division had seen fit to inform the department on. Nothing in his mental catalog fits. Dissociation, disorientation, hallucination, and paranoia plus the shakes isn’t exactly a money-maker when there isn’t a spectacular high involved.

He’s hardly keeping himself upright by the time Harvey shows up. The few folks who had wanted to use the phone gave up the moment they saw him. He'd tried to apologize, but they were gone before he could manage to string together a sentence.

When Harvey doesn't say a thing and just lends him a shoulder to help him walk, Jim’s never loved him more. “Thanks,” he rasps, clinging to the leather of Harvey’s coat.

“You're a real mess, Gordon.” Harvey opens the passenger side door of his car and eases Jim down onto the seat. He helps Jim untangle his legs, wiping his hands clean on Jim’s shirt when he’s done. “Where the fuck were you.”

“Warehouse,” Jim says. The word is a struggle. He's sweating again and chases each breath. His teeth chatter uncontrollably and he stares down at his hands. They’re trembling harder. He forms fists to ease the shaking.

“Little early to party isn't it? What am I saying. You're seeing morning from the other end, of course.” If he’s playing dress-up, Harvey is too. The cut of his leather coat is different, and the suit he has on is a hell of an upgrade. The flash of gold on his wrist looks real. “You know your father ain't gonna be pleased if he hears about you calling me.”

“My father--”

“I know. I know. Just cause he's moving on up and taking the mayor's residence doesn't mean you are. But Jimmy, kid, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t like you, but you've got to wise up. We all know who bankrolled that election. You keep on like you are every night, ruffling feathers, getting high, and Falcone isn't going to continue turning a blind eye. He's got plans for your old man that’ll go a whole lot smoother if you aren't making headlines.”

Harvey speaking gibberish at this point, and Jim’s done trying to hold on to his wits. At least the car is normal, smelling like Harvey’s favorite cologne with a hint of yesterday’s tacos. His eyes go heavy as the engine roars to life; the purr it settles in to surrounds Jim like a blanket.

The next thing Jim knows, Harvey’s guiding him into an elevator car that’s all gold-trimmed damask and silvered mirrors. “Inside and upstairs, hotshot. Let’s get you changed.” 

“I don’t feel right,” Jim says. He feels better, almost. At least he can string more than a single word together.

“Don’t feel right. Don’t smell right. Let’s have this chat after you clean up. You puke on me now and I’ll deliver you to Falcone myself.”

The elevator crawls to the twentieth floor, and Harvey shepherds him into a penthouse apartment that puts Barbara’s old place to shame. Even the fucking bathroom has a view, he marvels, slowly peeling out of the clothes he’s wearing as Harvey stands by and keeps watch.

“Thanks, Harv, dunno what happened, or whose clothes these are,” Jim says, lowering his head to drink directly from the sink faucet as Harvey turns on the taps in a walk-in shower. “You win the lottery or something? Whose digs?”

Harvey gives him a capital-L look. One that starts with saying he thinks Jim’s a moron and ends up lingering and traveling down Jim’s naked body like they hadn’t snapped towels in the GCPD locker room a few dozen times over.

“Take a picture,” Jim mutters, though he’s caught staring a bit at his own reflection. At first he thinks it’s a trick of the light, but twisting to the side the shadows disappear and leave him about twenty pounds shy of how he’d looked in the mirror when he’d woken up. He hasn’t been this skinny since before he’d enlisted and built up the kind of bulk you needed as a grunt. What the fuck was happening to him?

“I just might someday, you little tease. Now get in the fucking shower.”

Harvey might be staring a little more than is polite, but he sticks around until Jim’s huddled under the hot spray. Jim watches the filth sluice off his body and swirl down the drain, letting the water do all the work for now. The heat and steam makes his limbs heavy, saturated. After a minute or ten, he slides to the floor and closes his eyes, not feeling much of anything anymore.

*

Jim comes to with hands hard on his arms. He flails as he’s hauled to standing. The tiles underfoot are wet, slippery under his bare feet, and he favors his ankle instinctively though there isn’t even the slightest twinge of pain.

There’d been that awful stumble and the smell. He can’t forget it, but it's not the faded linoleum of the warehouse he’d been investigating underfoot, he's in a shower--naked as the day he was born. Harvey put him in here, Jim recalls as the missing minutes come rushing back, and now Harvey is pulling him out. 

“Must’ve slipped,” Jim says, still more than a little confused. Still weirdly disoriented. At least the lethargy and the aches are gone. “I'm fine.”

“I holy hope so.” Harvey grabs hold of his chin with remarkable gentleness and turns it one way and the other. He’s stripped down to his undershirt, his hair mussed like when he keeps taking off and putting on his glasses in the middle of afternoon paperwork. Jim had sworn he’d been wearing a belt, but the straps of his suspenders hang at his side. “You bust up that face of yours when I've got you for the week and Fish will have me over a spit.”

“Fish?” Jim repeats, frowning. “Fish Mooney?” Last he’d heard she'd taken a swan dive into the river and never crawled out. His hip brushes against a half-wall of tile that seems to have sprung out of nowhere. An accusatory look doesn’t send it packing.

“You sure you didn't hit your head?”

“Honestly, no. I just-- I feel off, Harv. Something real funny is going on.” Jim takes the towel Harvey gives him, and when Harvey stays hovering with a cautious hand near his back, Jim gives in to convenience and uses his bulk like a handy bit of wall. Looking down at his own body it still seems a little too skinny, but at least whatever had been in his system isn’t making him think he looks like a toothpick ready to break. From his time patrolling Arkham, he can imagine just what the shrinks would say: _Subject is experiencing distorted perception of self manifesting in mild visual hallucination._ He shrugs it off. Could be he just hasn’t been watching his diet and not eating regularly enough lately. “What happened over at Jackson? The place was cordoned off when I got there, but none of the uniforms would even step foot inside.”

“Are you ‘feeling off’ or are we playing detective?” Harvey gives him a once over that’s yet again a little too thorough below the belt. Jim’s skin prickles under the scrutiny even before Harvey goes on to say, “Cause, I can tuck you back into bed--I know Fish works you boys hard--until breakfast. Or, if this is a thing, babe, you know where my cuffs are. We can skip the twenty dollar room service waffles and go straight into a little interrogation session. Bad cop, naughty cop.” Harvey grins salaciously and pats him on the cheek, his thumb grazing over Jim’s mouth.

“Excuse me?”

“Not what I was expecting after last night, but you’ve got a knack for it, and you get so _damn_ enthusiastic when you're holding my badge.”

Struck dumb with a faint tingle lingering on his skin from Harvey’s hand, Jim stares. Maybe it’s not only him that’s gotten dosed. He swallows as Harvey’s gaze takes its sweet time moving south again, roaming across the bare expanse of Jim’s belly and the hang of his cock. Being looked at like a piece of candy isn’t exactly something Jim’s accustomed to. At least not by Harvey. Swallowing around the dryness in his throat, Jim wraps the towel firmly around his waist. How the hell did they go from Harvey rambling nonsense about his father being the mayor and Falcone to--well, whatever the hell this is.

Jim doesn't want to hear it but a small scared voice inside him points out his ankle isn't hurting. It could be he’d gotten clocked by something in that warehouse and everything after had been some wild dream, but it’s so real. Too real. Even if he’s out cold on the floor and this is all in his head, gathering and assessing the facts first seems a reasonably safe bet.

The layout and fixtures in here are all about maximizing space, but Jim can see how what would’ve been a penthouse in another life could’ve been divvied into a half-dozen hotel rooms. He’s not sure if it’s more terrifying that he’s going bonkers, or the prospect that he’s not and somehow he’s been plucked from the bathroom he remembers walking into and dropped right smack dab into this one. If it weren’t for Harvey, he might assume it was just that.

After giving him a ride for Harvey to strip out of his coat and shirt makes sense--he’d been downright filthy--but the watch on Harvey’s wrist is the same tarnished silver he’s always had, and there are tiny bottles on the sink that suggests boutique hotel. Room service might have been literal. How wrong could Jim’s memory be?

It’s like looking at a picture in one of those kids’ puzzle books where you have to spot what’s changed between the two, only it’s not as obvious as a telephone turned banana. Here, it’s that the view out the window remains the same but the window itself is round not arched, and the size of the bathroom itself is off by at least a foot. The sink’s gone from oval to square, and granted he hadn’t been in his right mind--isn’t sure he’s in it now still, either--when Harvey’d brought him here, but he can’t be this far off about so many things.

The towels are plush but there's no monogram. So, not too high-end for a mid-morning hotel stay, but still too rich for a detective’s salary. If Jim throws common sense out that tiny round window and accepts things are a little different, even his own body, it sits to reason that Harvey is too. Could be he’s earning a little extra on the side on top of-- On top of what? Fucking his partner in some kind of kinky roleplay?

“Are we staying in all day?” Jim asks, figuring that the best play is to go along with whatever sick game the universe has dumped him into.

He second guesses that decision when Harvey grabs him by the waist and muscles him up against the sink. Harvey’s body presses in a hot line against his, fitting snugly hip to hip and thigh to thigh. His fingers flex impatiently where Jim’s towel is tied. So it really is _that_ kind of hotel stay.

“You tell me, detective,” Harvey says, leaning in to put his mouth near Jim’s jaw.

Jim jerks his head back and slaps a hand between them, using his arm to bar Harvey at the chest. As much as he doesn’t believe that he’s dreaming, he still expects to wake up, that at any moment things are going to pop back to how they should be. If only it were that easy. The seconds keep ticking by and Jim can feel his own heartbeat pounding in his skull, warring with the heavy thud in Harvey’s broad chest.

It never ceases to amaze him that despite his partner’s penchant for the shittiest street food imaginable, Harvey is pretty damn fit. Just his type, Barbara would've teased once upon a time: big, bearded, and cotton candy at the core.

His own Harvey though, the real Harvey, had never looked at him like this. Never gave even the slightest hint that he was into men. Of course it's been Jim’s experience that queers had been a hell of a lot easier to spot in the army than on the force.

“What do you know about Fish Mooney?” Jim says, using a voice that these days usually earned him a plea to ease up. Harvey’s never shied away from strong-arming a suspect, that’s for sure, but he’s also never liked Jim’s direct approach to questioning. Harvey values results over policework--the Gotham way. That apparently doesn’t carry over to the bedroom. Jim’s wholly unprepared for the fire that kicks up in Harvey’s eyes and the way his mouth goes just a touch soft. Harvey’s shoes scuffle as his weight shifts, picking himself up to stand a little taller. He licks his lower lip and Jim reacts to the quick flash of tongue despite himself.

“You think I'm going to tell a punk like you a damn thing?” Harvey sneers convincingly. His eyes lock to Jim’s mouth, and Jim’s certain that if he doesn’t move, Harvey’s going to kiss him.

If he wasn’t starring in his own episode of the Twilight Zone, Jim might let him. “I think you’re going to tell me everything if you value your life,” he says, spinning Harvey around to march him out of the bathroom in a hammerlock with little actual pressure applied.

Harvey seems to appreciate it--a whole lot, judging by a lusty moan--up to the moment that Jim dumps him on the bed and snatches the cuffs from near the pile of his holster and wallet on the nightstand. Harvey twists around, the mattress bucking as he reaches to grab Jim’s arm. “Hey, hold up, I was kidding about the handcuffs.”

The nightstand also holds the works: packets of lube, wet wipes, a mile-long strip of condoms, and an ID card that sends a cold chill down the whole of Jim’s spine. According to the card, Jimmy Gordon is a bonafide contractor for Discreet Desires, Fish’s everything-has-a-price escort agency.

He still feels fucking ridiculous and off his rocker, but in for a penny…. Jim swallows his dignity and drops the towel. He arches a brow and flattens his hand low on his belly. The cuffs dangle from his fingers, grazing against his soft cock. “Don’t you trust me?”

Harvey’s gaze reluctantly jumps up to his face. “Jim, I--”

“Forget I asked about Fish,” Jim says. There’s no sense in trying to get Harvey to cross the woman if he thought Jim was working for her. He scoops up Harvey’s shield and holds it between them, the cuffs jangling in his off-hand. He gestures with his chin to get Harvey inching back and nestling up against a wall of pillows. “What do you know about the big warehouse on the two-thousand block of Jackson? The four-story building, brick and mortar, old school.”

Puzzled, Harvey pauses fluffing the pillows. “You mean the old Vanderson Factory? They made handbags in there twenty years ago. Lots of illegal workers. It was little more than a sweatshop.”

Jim snaps one end of the cuffs to Harvey’s wrist and the other to the bedpost as Harvey talks, deftly avoiding a grope or two while he pulls the belt free of the pair of pants near at hand that must belong to him. “I don’t care about twenty years ago, Harvey. What about since then?”

“Some Wayne Industries subsidiary bought it when the garment makers moved out of town. Put in some kind of laboratory,” Harvey pauses for a moment, distracted from leering at Jim as he searches his memory. “The place got boarded up for good after the Waynes got shot. Lots of property around town changing hands without old Thomas at the helm.”

“You’ve got to know more than that,” Jim prompts, rigging the slim leather belt into a makeshift cuff for Harvey’s other arm. He works off his gut instinct to find the right way to prompt Harvey to spill the beans. “Every cop’s got a story about that place,” he coaxes.

“Sure, missing persons. Weird-ass shit. Some people say ghosts, but that’s ridiculous. A scientist in there blew himself up a few years back. It was a big fucking deal. Sounded like a thunderclap and fried all the lights in a three block radius, but I knew a guy got called in on it and he said it wasn’t an explosion. There were no scorch marks, no burns, just… _nothing_ , like a thousand square feet of lab equipment simply didn’t exist anymore. Poof.” Harvey waggles his fingers, trying to put as much panache into the telling as he can. His teeth scrape over his lip, and he wriggles his hips. “How’s that for a story? I think I deserve a little something in return, don’t you, Jimmy?”

“It’s Jim.”

“Thought you hated being called Jim,” Harvey says. He shakes his head, leaving the softly curling ends of his hair falling into his face. “Sorry, didn’t mean to break scene, but you're killing me here. I’ve been saving up a real nice load for you, and you know you don’t come cheap, kid.”

“I sure hope not,” Jim says. He tests the belt-turned-restraint; it isn’t a great job, but it’ll hold Harvey for a while without risking that he’ll lose a hand from lack of circulation. Jim pushes away from the bed to pace naked, not really caring that his partner--no, not his partner--tracks his every movement with rapt attention. It’s not until Jim grabs up the scatter of clothes that, based on his profession, are unequivocally his that Harvey’s pleas go from teasing to concerned.

Jim tugs a too-tight shirt over his head and slips into a black quilted coat with fur at the collar. He’d always seen Harvey treat working girls with respect, and it stood to reason Harvey treated Jimmy Gordon just as nice. He squashes the guilt as he laces on a pair of boots; what choice does he have if he wants to figure out what’s going on? He needs to get back inside that building and take a look around, and if Harvey think he’s working for Fish there’s no way he’ll consider going with Jim into Maroni’s territory. “Look, there’s something I need to do,” Jim says. He finds the keys to the cuffs and leaves them where Harvey can see them. “I hope you can forgive me.”

“Kid, please, don’t do this.” Harvey’s hands twist against unforgiving leather and metal. His eyes are wide, white-rimmed and frantic. “Don’t be stupid. Stick with the plan.”

“I’m not in my right mind, so don’t hold this against me. Okay, Harv?”

“Stick with the plan,” Harvey repeats, voice raising to a roar. “I promised you I’d get you free of her, and I’m almost there. God damn it, Jimmy, I’m only a few thousand away. I can borrow that if I need to.”

Jim’s throat closes on itself. He doesn’t look back when he steals the bit of cash in Harvey’s wallet and ducks out the door into the whisper quiet of the hallway.

He takes the stairs instead of the elevator because he has to keep moving, but even when he’s outside he can’t shake the feeling that he should’ve tried to explain, one last time, this thing that’s happening to him.

But the crack in Harvey’s voice when he’d called out, “Just don’t get yourself killed. No matter what, I love you,” had been too much to bear.

*

Jim spends an hour or so walking, mostly to clear his head, partially because in practice the idea of going back to Jackson Street fills him with a raw, undefinable terror. He ducks into the lobby of an office building to take advantage of the warmth and to think. 

He doesn’t consider how he looks, and it doesn’t take more than a minute before security notices he’s loitering and starts to perk up, giving him the same kind of scrutiny he’d given plenty of folks over the years. He’s pretending to read the directory to buy himself a little more time when vertigo hits. A buzzing in his head precedes a sickening lurch that leaves him weak-kneed and disoriented. It passes in a matter of seconds, but not before Jim watches the world peel away in front of his eyes.

It’s like standing in the middle of a stream, only it’s not water flowing around him but the floors and the walls. The tile floor goes from slate grey to ivory marble, the columns shift and melt. Wallpaper flickers between patterns while people appear and disappear around him. When everything settles, he’s not wearing too-tight jeans, old combat boots, and a sleek down jacket anymore, he’s back in his usual suit and oxfords.

Only, there’s the pull of a shoulder harness under his coat, a duffel bag in his left hand, and a too-heavy umbrella in his right. Security is still eyeballing him, but they’re standing stock still and sweating bullets.

A tall, skinny man at the door waves frantically to him. “C’mon! Before the black and whites get here.”

Starting to get the picture, Jim bursts into motion, following the beanpole out the front door and into the back seat of a waiting car. They slip into mid-morning traffic, weaving between lanes and taking turns to lose any sign of pursuit. When the driver eases up, the goon next to Jim crows with laughter. He’s all amped up, grinning so wide it cracks his face in two. “How ‘bout it, Jimmy? No one got hurt that didn’t deserve it, just like you wanted, and we gained two blocks off that chump. The boss is gonna throw us a parade for scoring the dry cleaners.”

“Yippee,” Jim says, deadpan. The weighted brass tip of the umbrella lain across his lap is splattered with blood. He raps his knuckles against the window and clenches his jaw. He’s gone from hooker to hoodlum in the blink of an eye. The universe’s cruel joke just got uglier.

The car takes them further and further away from Jackson Street. Jim wavers between relief and anxiety. Not only is he getting further away from his best chance at looking for answers, he’s heading deep into what might still be Fish Mooney’s territory. He keeps an eye out, but there’s no sign of her influence, only Cobblepot’s--an unsettling amount of it. Whole blocks have been renovated, and while it looks less rough on the surface, there’s a tension in the way certain folks move down the street.

Mooney’s favorite club had gotten a facelift when Cobblepot took it over, and here it’s been cranked up to eleven. Glittering crystal icicles hang from the eaves, and a cartoon penguin waddles across a digital marquee that spans the width of the building. Two men in white tuxedos flank the entrance even this early in the morning. Jim isn’t the least bit surprised when the car slows to a stop in front of them.

One of them runs forward to get the door and deferentially calls him sir. By now the taste of bile in the back of Jim’s throat is becoming all too familiar. Also uncomfortably familiar is the stroll inside. Unlike the exterior, the place hasn’t changed much from the last time he’d stepped in here to ask Oswald for a favor. Sad, to find familiarity and comfort in a joint like this. Worse, to feel more comfortable playing this part than the last.

“Why the long face, James?” Oswald calls. He’s at the bar with the bruiser--Gilzean--he’d inherited from Fish looming beside him. “From what I hear, things went according to plan.”

“Word travels fast,” Jim says. He plasters on a smile and hangs his umbrella on the edge of the bar. He drops the duffel on a stool. Gilzean confirms the contents--stacks of low denomination bills banded together.

“Mother would fret to see you. You look like you've seen a ghost.”

“Only a ghost from the past. Fish certainly leaves an impression.”

Oswald's pale face drains, leaving him white as a sheet. He grips the edge of the bar. “What are you saying? You didn't-- You haven't actually--” He laughs, shrill and manic as he reads Jim’s expression and judges he’s overreacted. Oswald turns to pat Gilzean on the arm. “We miss her every day, don't we, Butch.”

“Praying for her safe return,” Butch says, and Oswald nods and chimes in with, “Prayers, yes. From our lips to God.” Only one of them comes close to sincerity.

Jim wonders what happened to her--if it's anything like what transpired in his memory or if this Oswald was sharper and smarter from the get-go. “I need to sit down,” Jim says, exhausted by the possibilities. He might not be crazy, but navigating this mess is going to drive him there. He’s dog-tired as it is and now he’s got the Penguin scrutinizing him. He’s treading water here and there’s no time to slow down if he wants to keep from drowning.

Oswald sends Butch off with the cash and slithers like a snake onto the seat beside Jim. He signals the bartender, a pouty-faced young man with wavy dark hair. Jim gives him a once-over; the eye candy hasn’t changed much since Fish owned the place.

“Pour us something special to drink,” Oswald says, as the bartender produces a pair of glasses. Top-shelf bourbon would ordinarily pique his interest, but it’s not even noon yet, and with Oswald watching him keenly, Jim hesitates in picking up the drink put before him.

“Almost a year you've worked with me and still we go through this. You realize in all this time I could simply have built up a tolerance for something quick and odorless.” Oswald sighs and sips from one glass and then the other. His shrill laughter claws into every inch of Jim’s skin. “I haven't of course. Mother is _so_ fond of you, James.”

“What do you know about the old factory at two-thousand Jackson?”

“Doesn't ring a bell,” Oswald answers, with nothing to suggest he’s holding out. He rolls his glass against his lip and gazes sidelong at Jim. “Would you like me to make some...inquiries?”

Jim doesn’t. No matter how far he seems to be in Oswald’s pocket at the moment, the idea of settling any deeper doesn’t feel good. He stares into his drink. There aren’t many options however, and fewer leads, and maybe even less time. There’s no telling if he’s going to blink and find himself sitting here next to Fish, or worse, slip back into the same skin he’d last woken up in, carrying an ID that said she owned him.

Better that he use Oswald’s talent for information while he can, foul as the idea is. “I’ll owe you one,” Jim says. He meets Oswald’s gaze and suppresses the ugly worry that wells up in his chest. “Whatever you can find out about the place, no matter how out there it seems.”

Oswald’s smile is sickly-sweet as he gets to his feet. He slams his glass down on the bar and pats Jim on the back. “Anything for you, old friend.” 

Left alone, it takes a good five minutes and another fifth of bourbon to get over the feeling that comes from dealing with the devil. He starts doodling on a cocktail napkin and at some point the doodling turns into notes. Journaling when he’d been overseas had been a habit--a relaxation exercise, his therapist would’ve said, and it still does the trick, bringing a touch of calm and focus with it. He grabs a whole damn stack of napkins and begins writing down everything he can remember from the moment the world seemed to drop out from under him and he’d gone from exploring an empty room to literally being in deep shit.

Looking at it now, clear-headed, things line up a lot more neatly than they’d seemed when he’d staggered into that phone booth. Jim closes his eyes, trying to recall the details of the car ride after Harvey had picked him up. There’d been something about-- He flexes his fingers wide and opens his eyes, remembering the faint aches everywhere, the nausea, the chills, and the track marks running down the backs of his filthy hands. So it was junkie to hooker to hoodlum. Great.

Before things went sideways he’d checked his phone, and when Harvey had helped him into the shower he’d gotten an eyeful of Harvey’s obnoxious gold watch. Approximating the moment of the last changeover, he taps the tip of his pen next to the trio of times. If only he’d paid better attention in math class. That whatever’s happening to him isn’t happening on the hour and that it’s taking increasingly longer to trigger are about the only conclusions Jim can come to.

Crumpling the napkin in his fist and discarding it along with the rest, he goes outside for air. He circles the block as he considers his options. Who can he trust? He's struck out twice with his first choice, the one man who’s had his back at the worst and who, deep down, Jim knows wants to fix this city as much as he does. But this Jim might be so far down the criminal path that giving Harvey a call again might land him behind bars, a prospect that gets more and more chilling if he entertains the idea that the transfer may not happen again. He could be stuck in this here and now; there's really no way to know.

Frustrated, Jim heads back in and grabs the telephone from behind the bar. He’s wasting time, precious hours have already melted away that he could’ve spent investigating on his own. He almost dials his parents’ old number, in case that somehow here one or the both of them might still be alive. At the last minute, he tries Wayne manor instead.

The phone rings and rings. He hangs up and dials again, knowing the number might very well be to some little old lady’s place. The sound drones on, each ring blending into the next to form a sort of white noise. It’s startling when the line is picked up, and Alfred’s rough greeting pours into his ear.

“Alfred, sorry--” Jim straightens. His grip on the receiver turns viselike. “It’s Jim. Jim Gordon.”

“Of course. Any word on Reggie?”

“Reggie?” It takes a moment for Jim to place the name--Reginald Payne, one of Alfred’s former squadmates. Dead from a third-story fall, but maybe the gears that had set that in motion hadn’t turned yet. “Sorry, Payne, no, that’s not why I’m calling.”

“How can I help you, sir?”

More polite, this Alfred. Or, more guarded, if that was even possible. Jim can’t find a way to even begin explaining the situation, and he considers that saying too much while in the Penguin’s lair might not be the wisest. “Can you meet me? Now?”

Seconds tick by. Jim can hear the sound of pages turning in the background--a desk calendar or day planner, probably. “I’ve an hour or two to spare. Master Bruce has extracurriculars this afternoon.”

Alfred agrees to meet him in a diner that’s far enough away from the bar to put some distance between himself and Fish’s old territory, but before Jim can duck out with no one the wiser, Oswald comes shuffling back in. “I’ve made a few calls,” he says in a sing-song. He trails off, clearly sizing Jim up and wondering where he thinks he’s going. “It’s a science facility, possibly an offshoot of WellZyn. Very hush hush. One way or another, it stinks of Wayne Foundation funding.”

A wavering candle flame of hope lights inside Jim. Harvey had mentioned it being a Wayne building as well. If he can get Alfred on his side he might have an actual avenue of investigation. A science facility could mean just about anything, but it feels like progress. Maybe there’s some sort of phenomenon centered there that Jim had run afoul of. Hell, it could be there’d been some crazy teleportation device right out of a comic book. “Is that all?”

“Getting a bit of gratitude out of you is like pulling teeth,” Oswald says, his nose wrinkling and his mouth twisting into an unpleasant sneer. He slides an envelope over to Jim. “I have an errand for you.”

It’s too risky to decline. Biting on his tongue, Jim takes the envelope--full of cash by the feel of it. “Where am I headed?”

“Your old stomping grounds, James.” Oswald smiles and cocks his head to the side like a bird. “There’s a little something in there for my second-favorite GCPD detective. Say hello to our old pal Harvey for me, would you?”

Jim bristles and it only makes Oswald’s smile deepen, his satisfaction as thick and cloying as cough syrup. If he’s going to get his face rubbed in it, at least he knows Harvey’s at the precinct, and being on the take means he can’t look down his nose at Jim being the Penguin’s bag boy.

If he’s lucky, he can still make it to the diner; having both Harvey _and_ Alfred on his side would make him rest a whole lot easier.

*

Knowing time is of the essence and not wanting one of Oswald’s goons keeping an eye on him, Jim takes a cab. He pays the cabbie extra to drive like his life depends on it, but mid-day traffic is as unforgiving as ever. Well, the wallet in his pocket isn’t going to miss the extra hundred dollars, a fact that makes him sick to his stomach. Almost a year, Oswald had said, which meant if everything else about his life here was about the same, he hadn’t lasted long in the GCPD. Not long at all.

It puts things in perspective, getting a first-hand look at just how fucked up his life would be if he’d strayed a little from the path. Not that ending up with his ex-fiance in the loony bin and a mob war on his hands wasn’t fucked up enough.

He's two steps in past the staff sergeant’s desk when he feels the change coming. It approaches like a thunderstorm, raising the hair on the back of his neck while invisible lightning licks across his face and down his extremities. His vision shakes and shivers. Unlike the last time when the walls had gone psychedelic, the changes are smaller: people popping in and out of place and faint shifts in the hue of the uniforms. Jim hardly breaks stride, even as he's aware of the moment his clothes go from different grades of suiting to ripstop pants and a duty belt.

A few more flickers like a roulette ball settling into place and the uniform turns from traffic division blue to private security brown to the dull grey he'd worn when he’d been demoted and stuck working at Arkham. That’s where it stops, and a glance at his badge pinned over his pocket and the wear at the cuffs of his sleeve tells Jim that maybe in this life, he’s still walking the halls of the asylum. 

An officer Jim doesn't recognize points him towards Harvey. He’s near the vending machines with his back turned and no hat, his graying hair tied into a tight neat tail at the nape of his neck.

Jim doesn't have a clue what to say. Shit’s FUBAR doesn't even seem to cover it. The indecision brings clarity of the wrong sort: a flapping red cape and tunnel vision that has Jim marching up to Harvey to take hold of his elbow. Jim steers Harvey forcefully a step towards the privacy offered in the space beside the machines. “Harv,” he says, in a rough whisper, “this is going to sound nuts, but I need your help.”

Rescuing his arm from Jim’s grip, Harvey takes off his glasses. He folds them carefully in his hand as he looks Jim up and down. “And you are?” The sincerity of his reaction can't be faked.

It's a sucker punch with how for the first time everything else had seemed to fall in line. Stomach dropping somewhere in the vicinity of his shoes, Jim introduces himself. He eases back into his own space, taking in more of the differences around him in this version of the precinct. The candy in the vending machine isn't the same tired old mix. The phones are all rotary instead of push button. And Harvey-- This Harvey is carrying an extra thirty pounds of mostly muscle. With his slicked-back ponytail, pressed three-piece suit and wingtips, he could fit right in with Maroni’s bruisers.

Jim switches up his tactic. “Can we talk somewhere private? I have information.”

“Alvarez, get this mug outta my face.”

Taking a chance, Jim says, “It's about the Wayne murders.”

That gets Harvey’s interest. He waves Alvarez away and says, “Come on. Let's talk in my office.”

“Captain,” Jim blurts out as Harvey leads him up the steps towards where he’d expect to see Essen. He recovers from the surprise by adding, “thanks for hearing me out.”

The plaques on the walls and the brass nameplate that read Bullock raise a lot of questions in Jim. With what it takes to make it to this office, Harvey's moral compass could point just about anywhere. “I haven't heard you out yet,” Harvey says, seating himself and moving a stack of files aside to fold his hands on the blotter. He looks at Jim like he's an inconvenience. Even that first time, when Jim had gotten a ride smelling like a landfill, Harvey’d still had a certain warmth in his gaze. It stings. “Why not major crimes? It's their case.”

“Look, I know no one wanted it,” Jim says, mind racing ahead to plan out how to make the hook. “I overheard something on shift.”

“At Arkham.”

“Guy came in to see an inmate,” Jim says, fabricating a story that blends what he hopes are enough actual details that remain true to the case to earn Harvey's trust.

“I'll make a call,” Harvey says. “If Allen and Montoya can verify some of what you're saying, then I'll see what I can do.”

Dismissed, Jim cools his heels on a bench near the desks that should be his and Harvey’s. He closes his eyes so he stops trying to pick out what's wrong and what's right, letting the familiar mix of sounds wash over him soothingly. For the first time since the morning the confusion and fear eases back, lets a bit of clarity back into his mind.

He runs a hand over the back of his head, finding that his hair has grown longer than he’s kept it in years. It's like he’s stuck in a bad movie, touring all these lives that could’ve been his until he learns some kind of lesson. He would’ve preferred the ghost of Christmas future to this.

He leans back, brow knitting together as he puts two-and-two together. There’s a little method to the madness. It’s not like he’s simply popped into being this time or the last--people would’ve noticed. He’s found himself in the same place under different circumstances. Following that thread to its conclusion, it means the Jim who works at Arkham has come here for a reason. A reason independent of Harvey, since this version of his partner didn't know him from any other man off the street.

Jim frowns and digs into his pockets for clues. If only he didn’t rely so much on memory and kept a damn day planner. The driver’s license in his wallet shows him living at the same address, while the phone he carries is registered to a different number and doesn’t hold much in the way of recent calls. He strikes paydirt in his shirt pocket, where a piece of paper folded twice over turns out to be a prisoner transfer form.

He’s getting to his feet just as an orderly he knows--Peter, goes by Pete--comes in looking for him. “What's taking so long?” Pete asks. He props his hands on his hips as he surveys the cells.

“You know how it is,” Jim says. “It'll be just a sec. Why don't you wait here in case Alvarez comes back; he was the arresting officer. I'll go check on the paperwork.”

He claps Pete on the arm as he goes to the sergeant on duty to initiate the transfer. He can't not do his job, not when the more he thinks about it, the more he might have royally fucked over the other versions of himself. Would Fish’s escort Jimmy even remember why he was miles away from his trick? And what about the Jim who’d walked in here? Would he know who the cash was for or end up burning Alfred as an ally? Jim drums his fingers on the counter as the transfer is rubber stamped. There’s no telling, and there’s no going back. Well, theoretically at least; it hasn’t happened yet.

A uniform escorts Jim over to the holding cells. The officer unlocks the door and stands guard. “All yours,” he says. “Good riddance.”

The clown in the purple suit comes along without a struggle. He cracks a few tasteless jokes as Jim leads him out via the loading dock, but overall Jim’s had a tougher time with drunks.

At Arkham, Jim oversees the intake, and as much as he'd hated being assigned here, there are worse circumstances to be in. If he ends up stuck in this lifetime, moving from Arkham to a better division is possible, or, if he’d never been demoted at all, he could take the detective's exam and earn himself a brand new second chance at cleaning up this town.

Clad now in stripes, with mad eyes looking out from dark hollows on his bone-white skin, the prisoner stares straight at Jim and seems to see right through him. The man laughs as he’s hauled away. “You're running out of time,” he calls to Jim. “You and this whole city.”

The madman’s statement hangs over Jim as he goes back to his post to figure out his next move. He starts by doing his napkin math all over again. He’s never been good at algebra or pattern recognition, but with one more number into the mix, he knows the odds are better for figuring out of there’s a way to predict the next change, and if there’s one thing Arkham has in spades, it’s crackpot geniuses who are too smart for their own good. During his rounds, he shows the figures to a few inmates who’d always shown a propensity for puzzles and numbers.

It’s a big fella who liked to go by Quantum when Jim knew him and goes by Chronum here who seizes on the pattern like he well and truly knows it. He spells it out for Jim in fits and starts, giving up a few possible options of what the next number might be between bouts of nonsense.

A glance at the clock on the wall says if the guy is right, Jim’s got at least ten minutes left in this reality and at most thirty.

Having a time table, it turns out, doesn’t make Jim any less anxious. It’s a crapshoot staying put. When things change, being on staff isn’t the only option the universe might throw at him. He could blink and find himself in a striped jumpsuit, too doped up talk and drooling all over himself.

The next nine minutes pass like an eternity. He spends them memorizing the numbers Chronum had given him. As the clock ticks over, Jim’s spine is stiff with tension. After another moment, he releases a long-held breath. Maybe the best course of action is to get out of here--consequences be damned--and put himself in a position to be more likely to result in a better set of circumstances.

He can't get back to ground zero within the half hour, but he could get back to the precinct. Having GCPD resources would be his best--

The change hits without warning, not a flicker this time but a jolt. His knees go out from under him and he catches the back of a metal chair before crumpling.

“Gordon! Are you okay?” Pete asks. A second ago, the shadow at Jim’s side had been a lamp. “I told you to get yourself looked at. That clown clocked you pretty hard.”

“The prisoner transfer,” Jim says, trying to ground himself in the reality. His head is pounding. He touches the peak of his skull and finds a tender, swelling bruise.

“Yeah. Glad that one’s going straight to a padded cell.”

Besides the lamp-turned-Pete, nothing else has changed. Jim’s wearing the same uniform, standing amidst the same gray walls, smelling the same mix of industrial-strength cleaner and ever-present mold. Did things change? Had he imagined the lamp? It’s like having the worst case of deja vu possible. Jim reconsiders madness. “You're right. Sorry, I'll--” He pushes past Pete and heads directly for the security room to call up his supervisor.

He can’t believe everything that’s happened to him today has been in his mind. He can’t afford to second-guess himself now, and with another guard coming up from basement duty to cover the rest of his shift, he doesn’t have anything to lose if he goes with his gut. Jim recites Chronum’s numbers underneath his breath. He has far more time in this cycle if it holds, twelve to fourteen full hours to figure out how to get home.

Heading outside, Jim starts with his pockets again, checking his address and his keys. So far, so good. He finds his sedan parked in its usual spot, and jots the pattern of times down on a scrap of paper he finds in the glovebox before he risks forgetting them.

A half of a day means he can go straight to Jackson Street and take his time looking around. He wrings his hands on the steering wheel. He heads towards the precinct instead.

He's nothing if not stubborn, and whether or not it’s true, it feels an awful lot like not having backup along is what got him in this mess in the first place.

He doesn’t even have to look for Harvey; Harvey’s out front when he gets there.

“What the fuck are you doing back here?” Harvey hisses, throwing down a half-smoked cigarette and letting it burn out on the pavement. He jogs down the steps and throws an arm around Jim’s shoulders, steering him away from the steady flow of people going in and out of the building. “You start skipping shifts on top of stirring up shit and that’s it. I don't care what you think that purple-suited mope is up to, the captain catches you coming back to prove a point and you've got nowhere else to go, pal.”

“There was an altercation. I've got the rest of the day off.”

“An altercation, that’s a nice way of putting it. I hope you gave that son of a bitch a pair of black eyes for the way he was looking at the captain. You get written up, Jimbo?”

“No, nothing like that. Look, Harvey--” Jim sighs as Harvey surreptitiously looks for defensive wounds. “I'm fine.”

“You don't look like you're fine. You look like you’ve been run over by a freight train.”

“Okay, I took one on the back of the head, but that’s not why I’m here. I need your help.”

“What kind of help are we talking about?” Harvey looks skeptical, but there’s no hesitation in his body language that goes beyond his usual preference to do as little work as possible. Jim’s chest tightens into an acute ache.

“I need to check a lead. Just back me up on this one and I'll owe you one.”

Harvey pulls a face and puts a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “You owe me a lot of ones already. What makes today any different?”

Jim barks a laugh. If only he could explain. “I'm good for it,” he says. “Whatever you need.” Even as he says it, his mind goes straight into the gutter with the rest of the trash. The way Harvey looks at him now is nothing like it’d been this morning, but Jim can’t forget it. He can’t help but wonder if there’s a bit of that Harvey here too.

“It's nothing that the captain will need to know about,” Jim assures him. “I just need to get into a building.”

“You talking B&E or batting your pretty eyelashes at the secretary?”

Maybe there’s more than a little bit of that Harvey, Jim muses. He smirks. “Whatever it takes.”

“All right. Let’s hit the road,” Harvey suggests. “About time I had a lunch break anyway.”

Jim pulls out his keys and Harvey smacks his hand. “Put those things away. You think I’m going to let you drive?”

*

The two-thousand block of Jackson Street is one big empty lot.

“What were you expecting?” Harvey asks, resting his back against the driver’s side door. He unwraps a burrito and gestures with it. “The whole building was leveled a while back. All the equipment was moved out after some kind of explosion happened. There’d been a lot of space-age stuff in there.”

“Any of it still left?” Jim asks, hopefully.

“You know how it goes, most of it never even made it to lock-up. What didn’t fall off the back of the cart to be sold for scrap went straight to the Flea.” Harvey takes a bite, pausing in mid-chew when Jim runs his hands over his face and strangles the howl that burns in his throat. Harvey swallows hastily. “Jim?”

“I need a minute.”

Jim leaves Harvey by the car and enters the lot through a gap in the fence. Each step feels lighter than the last, a sensation he’s encountered before, when he’d crossed the wet grass to watch as his father’s coffin was lowered into the ground. He drifts towards the area of the lot that would’ve been the building’s main stairwell, roughly following the same path that felt more like days than hours since he’d walked it.

Standing in about the right spot, with a scatter of abandoned tires and broken glass around him, the hair at the nape of Jim’s neck stands on end and that's it.

He lingers there long enough for Harvey to come tromping through the weeds to fetch him. “You want a ride back to your car, or do you want me to drive you home?”

Jim stares up at the gray expanse of the sky. This is as close to normal as he may never see again. Home isn't truly his, and it wouldn't be. He’d be walking around in another man’s life tonight, sleeping in a bed that doesn’t belong to him, knowing it wasn’t real. Even if it seemed right all the way down to the way it smells, it wouldn’t be _real_.

He can’t do it. When the switch comes again-- “Can I stay at your place for a night?”

Harvey doesn’t question it, he simply says, “Couch is yours. I’ll drop you off on my way back to the station,” and allows Jim another minute of silence before leading the way out of the lot.

It isn’t until hours later, when Harvey’s banging through the front door with an armful of takeout and a bad impression of Ricky Ricardo that Jim realizes what it could mean if he’s stays in Harvey’s apartment when he’s kicked out of this life and into the next.

“What, no kiss?” Harvey says, dumping the bag on a cluttered drop-leaf table. He’s quick to shrug off his coat, glancing around as he does. “I’m not gonna lie, I was hoping you’d clean up the place a little.”

Honestly, it’s a lot tidier than Jim would have ever imagined it would be. Most of the mess comes from stacks of mail and dirty pint glasses, both sins Jim himself is guilty of on the regular. He ignores the comment about the kiss and noses around in the plastic bag of takeout. “Chinese?”

“Thai, you plebe. Can’t you smell the curry?”

Jim grins despite himself. Even if it ends up that Harvey’s sweet on him again, or could be in six hours, he can live with this. They’d gotten along like oil and water at first, but he can’t imagine life without the man at his side. Hell, after he and Barbara had fallen apart, Harvey had been rude about it, but he’d been there, steadfast. Maybe all that’s ever gotten in the way is having their jobs and reputations on the line.

Halfway through his curry, Jim takes the leap and tells Harvey the truth. It takes a couple tries and he fudges some of the details, but eventually Harvey’s bemused expression fades towards concern.

“You're serious,” Harvey says. He sits back, running his fingers through his hair and staring at Jim like he’s seeing him for the first time.

“I wish I wasn't.”

“This is crazy.”

Jim nods in complete agreement.

Harvey draws in a slow breath. Jim waits for him to say something else, but he merely blows out a heavy sigh and shakes his head. “I’m crazy,” he says, “because I’m pretty sure that I believe you.”

“Thanks, Harvey. You have no idea what that means to me right now.” Jim’s fingers twitch; he’d been about to reach over to lay a hand on Harvey’s arm. Though that hadn’t been his first thought. Far from it.

With where his mind just went, he wonders if his other self is still inside this body, stuck as a passenger and cringing at the thought. Or it could be the notion of putting his mouth to Harvey’s hadn’t even been his own. Jim’s head spins; it’s all too much.

“Don’t get sentimental on me now, Gordon,” Harvey says, and shoves the half-finished container of curry back in front of Jim. “Save it for later. You don’t turn into a pumpkin until after midnight.”

As the minutes pass, Jim asks himself how he’d feel if he was the one in the back seat, watching some other version of himself making the moves on his partner, crossing a line he’d never considered. A hot tingle in his gut suggests that a part of him would want to be tipped over that edge.

In the end though, Jim doesn’t say a thing, and he decides he can’t stay here either. He shouldn’t play with other people’s lives any more than he has to. Better to remember waking up as Harvey’s whore than risk stepping into a life as his lover.

When Jim’s last hours come around, Harvey drives him to where they’d worked their first case together. They go up to the roof accompanied by a few six-packs and stare down at the alley where the Waynes had been murdered.

“I’m gonna feel stupid if nothing happens,” Harvey says. He toys with the tab on the top of the can until it pops off. The bit of metal catches the light from across the way. He turns it around and around in his fingers before flicking it off the edge of the roof.

“You and me both,” Jim says, but he can feel it again. He moves away from the edge of the building. It’s like a roaring wave this time, looming and unescapable. He fists the sleeve of Harvey’s coat, says fuck it at the last moment and kisses him, hard and close-mouthed and full of longing. “Will you stay? Take care of this Jim, I don’t know what happens after I leave. Make sure he knows where I've parked the car at the very least.”

“Yeah.” Harvey sounds a little choked up. “Don’t be stupid. You can count on me.”

*

Harvey melts away, and Jim closes his eyes, letting the world shift around him as it will.

In what possible universe would he be up on the top of this building, he wonders. Maybe he's about to save some sad sack Jim Gordon from taking a leap and kissing pavement. Maybe he'll be taking a page out of Selena's book, gone into a life of crime and waiting on high to hit passersby with fat wallets and no sense.

The last person he expects to find when the tide recedes and he cracks an eye open is Alfred Pennyworth standing over him with a pinched expression.

Alfred's demeanor flickers, compensated for quickly but the faint hesitation in his offered hand is enough that Jim knows that somehow he knows.

“Something has been happening to me,” Jim says, accepting the help up gratefully. “It’s going to sound crazy, but I'm not the Jim you think I am.”

“Kind of you to admit as much, but this hardly seems the place.”

Jim looks down. He's clad head-to-toe in black, an old police-issue vest stripped of identifiers strapped on over a spec ops jumpsuit. A nonreflective helmet lies at his feet. Alfred retrieves it solemnly and tucks it neatly under his arm. He points Jim towards a helicopter perched near the edge of the roof. With its narrow profile and weaponry, it definitely shouldn’t be in civilian hands.

“Shall we?”

As bewildered as ever, Jim straps in on the co-pilot’s side and pulls down the flight helmet. He switches on the headset to ask, “Where are you taking me?”

Alfred glances at him as he fires up the helicopter. “Back to Lucius. He’s the one who warned us--you--that this might happen.” The blades as they spin up are remarkably quiet.

Quiet and extremely fucking agile, Jim discovers, his hands clamping to the seat as it lifts off.

“I've been feeling lost all day, but I have to say that this one takes the cake.”

“We’ll get you sorted out, sir,” Alfred says, taking them out of the city towards Wayne manor.

Talk about being trapped in a science fiction story, Jim muses as the earth itself seems to open up on their approach. They touch down on a landing pad that only shows on the navigational screen, and the stars above are swallowed up as they're lowered down, helicopter and all, beneath the grounds of the Wayne family estate.

“I take it Bruce knows about all this.” With how intense and isolated Bruce is, giving him something practical to focus on like flight lessons seems worth a shot. Better still if this Thomas hadn't been so opposed to therapy.

Alfred stays silent on the subject until he's leading Jim into what Jim can only think of as a command center. A bank of screens flick between cctv feeds and traffic cameras, while another half-dozen are devoted to 24-hour news channels and various talking heads. “It's my regret to inform you that young Master Bruce perished alongside his mother over a year ago.”

Cringing, Jim lays a hand on Alfred's shoulder by way of apology. He can’t imagine Alfred being the touchy-feely type in any universe, so Jim does them both a favor and changes the subject. “Why the lack of surprise when I said I wasn't the Jim you knew?”

“That'd be my contribution, Mr. Gordon.” Lucius Fox appears, stepping past the metal gate of an old elevator, the sort that doesn't even have call buttons. “In this reality, the one you're a visitor in, Alfred, myself, and you have been investigating certain divisions of Wayne Enterprises which have been operating, shall we say, not aboveboard. One of those divisions oversaw a science facility headquartered in the Vanderson building. By the look on your face, I presume you're familiar with the locale.”

“You could say that.” 

Lucius launches into specifics, more than half of which goes straight over Jim's head. “Sum it up for the lad,” Alfred says, interrupting.

“Short story: We’ve had a theory of transference for a while. And today we’ve been monitoring energy spikes that correlate with headaches our Jim has been suffering. As the intervals are getting longer, a trend that you may have recognized already, if we can get you back to Jackson Street, we can hope that the other you--our Jim--has managed to get back there as well. Enough proximity and enough energy from this end should push you back where you belong. Reverse the transfer.”

“Sounds like a lot of ifs.”

Lucius takes a seat at a computer terminal and levels a look at Jim. “You might not get another chance.”

“And if it doesn't work?”

“Best not to think about that,” Alfred says.

Jim stares into the distance. “I’ll keep being a tourist.”

“Eventually you’ll have days at a time, then years, and if you’re lucky you’ll land those years in a fit body in good circumstances.”

“From what I’ve seen so far, that’s a fifty-fifty chance or less,” Jim mutters. He starts removing the body armor, finding more than a few weapons in the tricked out duty belt. “If I'm the only one bouncing around, how is it you already had this all figured out? Seems pretty far fetched to me.”

Alfred sorts and stacks all the gear that Jim sheds. “Over a year ago, before the missus died, Thomas was the one who’d begun the investigation into WellZyn’s biotechnical division. He disappeared in that very same building.”

“Disappeared?” Jim asks.

Lucius nods solemnly. “Was the lab operational when you were in it?”

“Operational? No. Place was abandoned. Boarded up, but--” Jim struggles to remember the truth of it in his memories. “A padlock had been cut and a body was reported to be inside. I didn’t see anything. Lab was mostly empty, but there was sheeting over what was left. Looked like furniture or filing cabinets.”

“What was the weather like.”

“I don’t know. Raining, I guess.”

“Lightning?”

“Sure-- Yes.”

“A big enough jolt of electricity would be enough to transfer your consciousness, but not enough to move your whole physical form. You’re in a sort of feedback loop, riding along the ripples in a pond. The incident that took Thomas knocked the power out of all of Gotham and a third of the state.”

Jim ejects a live round and a clip from the gun that’d been in his holster. He sets them all down neatly. “You think he’s still alive.”

Alfred’s spine straightens. “I have to believe so.”

“So what can I do? How do I help?”

Lucius slides his chair to another terminal where data is scrolling by, too quickly to read. He types in a quick series of commands. “Rest so you’re ready when you need to be.”

“I'll take you up to the house and you can make yourself comfortable,” Alfred gestures to the elevator. Sitting around doesn’t seem the least bit restful, but staying here means getting in the way. Reluctantly, Jim follows along. The corner of Alfred’s mouth crooks into a half-smile. “Not every day is it, that you can get some answers to what if and what might be.”

“I think I would’ve preferred seeing a psychic.”

“Bruce,” Alfred begins. He hesitates and begins again, “The Bruce you’re acquainted with...he’s alive and well?”

“He lost both his parents at once,” Jim says, trying not to sugarcoat it when Alfred would probably see straight through that. “He’s coping. You do a fine job of raising him.”

“Me, raising a child?” Alfred snorts. “Poor lad.”

“Thomas and Martha trusted you enough to leave him in your hands.”

“As they did with all this nonsense,” Alfred says, gesturing at the house. He glances at Jim and gives him the cliff notes, how Jim had investigated the murder. How after the ugly truth of the corruption welled up and negated all the promises he’d made to Alfred, Jim quit the GCPD, moved in here, and together they took up a brand of vigilantism. Jim’s not sure that’s the right answer to all the ills that Gotham suffers from, but it must be a whole lot more satisfying to meet its ugliest problems head on.

In addition to giving him directions to a guest room--it seems wrong sleeping in the master suite, even if it is, in a way, his bed--Alfred fixes Jim a plate of toast and jam and a hot cup of tea. None of it seems the least bit appetizing, but he accepts it with good grace. “What’s this?” he asks, when Alfred sets a computerized tablet in front of him.

“Bit of research if you like,” Alfred answers, giving him a quick rundown of how it works before disappearing back to the underbelly of the mansion to support Lucius.

Jim nibbles at the toast, and eventually he gives in to morbid curiosity, navigating through the electronic newspaper until he finds the society section. He doesn't expect to find Barbara, only hopes to, and he smiles faintly when there she is, smiling in a photo with the caption: _Gallery owner Barbara Keane and gal pal Renee Montoya spotted at opening night Gala._

The police blotter doesn’t have a mention of Harvey, but when Jim takes to wandering he finds a notepad in the study with a telephone message recorded in what must be Alfred’s neat handwriting. _Miss you, buddy. Thanks for the last tip. Don’t be a stranger, I know you can afford to buy me a steak dinner now and then._

After he tries to sleep and can’t, he retraces his steps and finds the hidden switch that lets him take the elevator back down. Lucius and Alfred don’t seem the least bit surprised to see him.

“Can you give me access to some of your open investigations?” he asks. “Whether or not they hold true, I might know a few things that your Jim doesn’t. It’s worth a shot, right?”

“Indeed it is, Master Gordon.” 

*

A long night, a longer day, and Jim catches a few hours of sleep at the very end of it. Alfred gently shakes him awake and tells him it’s time. He peels his face away from a stack of files and all the handwritten notes he’s added which may or may not pan out. The fire in the hearth has turned to coals, and a chill has crept in to the study.

“Aren’t we taking the--” Jim points in the general direction of the underground cave.

“Boys and their toys,” Alfred scoffs. He leads Jim into a large carriage house turned garage. “The Bentley will do just fine.”

Jim’s never been much of a car guy, but the line of sleek sports cars just begs to be touched. He keeps his hands to himself, and allows Alfred to open the door to the Bentley for him. Quietude crowds close, and they ride primarily in silence.

“Do you really think this will work?” Jim asks, as they take the exit that leads towards Jackson Street.

“Lucius believes it will.”

“I’m asking you.”

“It either works or it doesn’t, Master Gordon,” Alfred replies. “No sense in fretting about it.”

Alfred produces a set of keys to let them in the front door. Here, the building is in perfect condition, with no sign that it’s not still in use. If it were Harvey with him, there’d be commentary, something to break up the awful silence. Alfred on the other hand is a shadow lingering a few paces behind.

They find the room, the silhouetted equipment naggingly familiar. “Here,” Jim says, pointing towards the bulky unit that he’d made the mistake of looking behind.

Alfred stares at the boxy machine. It looks like an old data storage unit, the sort that relied on tapes, and is about the least sophisticated piece of equipment in here. “This thing? You’re sure.”

“Positive.”

Alfred produces the set of instructions Lucius had given them. “Well, we’d better get on it then.”

*

The surge of electricity had knocked Jim straight on his ass. He tries to stand up, to ask what went wrong, but he’s handcuffed to a filing cabinet. The restraint is more a formality than anything; a few hard tugs and it looks like the rusted old handle would pop right off.

He looks up into the barrel of a revolver. Harvey’s gun. With Harvey aiming it directly at him.

“Harvey?”

“In the flesh. Now tell me what's your deal. Why’d you come here?”

“At 8am Tuesday morning I was responding to a call. Crime scene hadn't arrived yet. Officers on scene were squirrelly and refused to enter the premises. Lightning hit I guess, turned something on, and after that, you don’t even want to know. Made it back here with a bit of help to reverse the process. I hope.” Jim swallows around a parched throat. “Can you put the gun down, please?”

Apparently satisfied, Harvey tucks it back into his holster. “No hard feelings. You could’ve been an evil genius or something.”

“Well, I’m not. I hope you’re you.”

“Yeah, you know, it’s been peachy. Showed up at a crime scene on a regular Tuesday to find my boy scout partner stealing a bag of smack off a dead dealer.” Harvey crouches down and unlocks the handcuffs. He helps Jim to his feet and holds him steady. “You only started to make sense in the last day, and by then I was willing to believe in little green men from Mars. You wouldn’t _believe_ the shit that’s been coming out of your mouth.”

“I’d believe it,” Jim says, having a hard time looking Harvey in the eye.

“I’ve been covering for you, though. Said we both caught the flu.” Harvey puts his cuffs away. “Sorry about the sore wrists, you weren’t always the most cooperative, and err--” He clears his throat.

Jim winces; there’s no reason to deny it. “For a while I was a little too cooperative, I’d guess.”

“Can’t say I wasn’t tempted,” Harvey admits. He pats Jim lightly on the face. “Don’t worry, Gordon, I kept it in my pants. I was a little too worried you were going to end up in Arkham wearing the wrong kind of uniform.”

“You and me both. Thanks, Harv. Thanks for everything.”

“Save it, junior,” Harvey says, easing an arm under Jim’s when Jim can’t walk a straight line. “Let’s get you home.”

“I’ve never been this exhausted in my life.”

“I hear you. This has been one hell of a rollercoaster ride. We can talk about how at least two of your little multiple personalities are complete cocksluts later.”

At the bottom of the stairwell, Jim pauses. “Wait, what do you mean _two_?”


End file.
